


More Free Time than Good Sense

by maypop



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, what am I doing with my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-03
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maypop/pseuds/maypop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gauntlet was thrown down. A gauntlet of fem!China/Sealand. To which I can only say AND WHAT, I GOT THIS, I AIN'T SCARED.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Free Time than Good Sense

They were putting on an adaption of the Dream of the Red Chamber at the Globe. England pulled down the poster, and felt a little better.

England had once said--back when you could say things like that--that China learned not quickly but very, very well. The titans of the Chinese-American century could not go to war in the age of uranium, and they hadn’t; but one day the Western world had looked around and realised they didn’t own their own houses anymore. It was probably fair. England was seldom in the mood to be fair.

In the old days, she and America might have been married, her dumbest son, his most annoying daughter. They might have shared a room, and worked out their own private compromises. These days it wasn’t so straightforward, and they all got dragged into it.

England pulled out his phone and thumbed a message. _Why does she want him?_ Idly he toed the poster into a puddle while he waited for a reply. Mud swallowed Mei Tyler’s dyed-black hair. The phone trilled.

 _Don’t know,_ America had sent. _Research._

 _Not good enough,_ England typed back, and his phone lit up with a reply almost immediately.

 _Ta ma de you think I like this?_ England mashed his thumb against the delete button. He’d liked text messaging, it meant he didn’t hear what America’s accent had become. It looked like that was gone, too. The phone trilled again.  
 _  
You’ll do it?_

 _Of course._

England scrolled through his list of contacts, and landed on Sweden.

*

England didn’t think much about it afterwards. He’d sold worse things, given up more important bits of himself, and Sealand had never been his in a way that tore at him. He went on.

It was still a bit of a shock to see him again, five years later. He held China’s briefcase in a hand made of metal.

“You look--well,” England said.

“What do you know,” Sealand said, and China hesitated in a pointed way before reprimanding him for disrespect. Sealand ducked his head and didn’t look up again for the rest of the meeting.

England asked America about it, later.

“Her favorite,” he said, mouth twisting. “‘How make nation, have no land, have so few people?’ Perfect for research.”

“His hand...?”

“He’s an old structure,” America said, shrugging. “Bits fall off. She gets Japan to fix him up.”

England ran his fingers over the edge of his briefcase and tried to think of a way to not ask the next question. There wasn’t one. “When you say research, America--”

There was a thick silence.

“You didn’t have to give him up,” America said. “Denmark kept Christiania.”

“Being an empire means being preoccupied with your fall,” England said. “Is that what she’s researching, America?”

America ran his hand through his hair, making it stand up in odd directions, and under its dandelion spray he gave England a slightly pleading look. The boy, England thought distantly, was entirely too desperate to have the world approve of him. Until, of course, he wasn’t, and some dusty boutique country was full of tanks.

“Not only that,” America said. “She wants to know what happens when we’re happy, too. She wants the best for her people, you know.”

“So you’ve said,” England said. “Often.”

“She makes sure he’s happy,” America insisted.

England didn’t respond. What was there to say?

That night they all had dinner, and France, who let the fading relevance of haute cuisine get up his nose sometimes, did not eat. He did, however, drink, and after the toasts had gotten exceedingly irrelevant and far-ranging, his hand came down on Sealand’s metal arm.

“What does this little toggle do, then?” he said, and jabbed a button on the wrist.

With a click and a _whrrrrrrrr,_ Sealand’s hand started vibrating.

“My word,” France said, and slipped sideways out of his chair, sniggering uncontrollably.

“Cao ni ma,” Sealand sighed, and turned it off.

“To things we all wondered about, perhaps,” France proposed from the floor, and they all drank. Deeply.

**Author's Note:**

> Holy crap, footnotes for this? Sadly, yes.  
> -The Dream of the Red Chamber is a famous Chinese classic.  
> \-- Ta ma de is "Your mom" and equivalent to "damn", and "cao ni ma" is "fuck your mother."


End file.
